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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Water Bob" data-source="post: 5610174" data-attributes="member: 92305">I don't play 4e, but I did just run 4 sessions in a row that had no combat in them (sorta--see if it qualifies). The first game session was first for the campaign. We're playing the Conan RPG (based on d20 3.5), and the PCs are Cimmerians. All are 1st level Barbarian characters, all the members of the same clan, all about the same age. Session One started with the PCs at 12 years old. The focus of the session was the clan rite that boys of their age attempt to begin warrior training. It's a race--a type of obstacle course type race--around the village. Those that finish the race are deemed worthy to begin warrior training (it's a three year training program). The race is designed to separate those not physically able (mature) to begin training from those who are not. Instead of combat, the drama in this game session came from running this race. I had set up a pretty detailed course and rules. The race took them around the village, climbing up a sheer cliff, jumping across a crevass, balancing on an old dead tree across a stream, jumping off a cliff into a pool of water to swim to the shore, wading through a knee-deep bog, and the like.  It was pretty fun. The players had a blast.     Session Two, we picked up a year later. The boys were a year into their training now. And, basically, then entire game session centered around roleplaying with NPCs I had made up in the village. The boys were setting up their careers with the other villagers--so that took most of the game session. I also put some NPC girls into the mix to interact with the PCs, and I created some new NPCs boys a year behind the PCs who didn't like them and would start a lot of trouble. This was the focus of this game--the animosity between the PCs and the new male NPCs who were "starting crap" with them, and the eagerness to get the older villagers to take them on as apprentices to the various careers available in the village. We had one character start down the path of becoming a weapon smith. Another is becoming a hunter. Another is a trapper. And a fourth is a Watchman, which is the small full-time security force that the clan uses.   Sesson three saw the inclusion of a new player, so all the roleplaying centered around bringing this new character into the game. I gotta tell you, the other games were fun, but this one was our best session to date.  I set up lots of intrigue with this new player.  He's an orphan (the other PCs have NPC families that we've created), and his father is "rex" (which is a Cimmerian term that he did something so dishonorable that the clan does not acknowledge that he ever lived). So, this game session had plenty of mystery/intrigue, and it was extremely fun to watch the players interact with the older NPCs trying to learn something about this PC's father while the NPCs are all honor-bound never to acknowledge him at all. I also played through some wacked out dreams I had created (with a lot of symbolism in them--that the players can decipher if they put their minds to it, telling them about the hidden parts of the story).  I played these "straight" where the player had to figure out he was dreaming.  It was a highlight of the night's gaming.     Session four saw some "action", kinda-sorta. It's now two years since the game began (game years--the PCs are about 14 years old now), and the biggest fair that the clan celebrates all year is in full swing. The boys are getting close to "graduating" and becoming accepted as warriors.  I created some contests (as a means for them to gain equipment) for them. So, we really did do some "combat" in this session--it's just that it wasn't "real" combat. The boys uses makeshift shields and wooden training swords.  I set up some tournaments, and the winner this one won a shield. The winner of that one won a spear. You get the idea. You get the idea.     Session Five is coming up in a week or so. I think it's time for some real combat. I'm going to pick up a few hours after we quit last time. The fair is coming to an end, and some of the clansmen are returning to the outlying homesteads. I plan on the NPCs to be somewhat away from the village, near the road, collecting firewood when they hear some screams. If they go an investigate, a rival clan has attacked a wagon of the leaving clansmen, and there is a battle taking place. The PCs can join--it will be their first real battle for the campaign (and I plan on "playing up" the first human kills that these characters experience). I think the battle will go towards the PCs, and if it does, I've set up this neat chase sequence as the bad guys bolt, running up an over a nearby hill. The otherside of the hill ends in a cliff that is about 40' above the forested floor. I plan on having a NPC bad guy jump from the cliff straight into the branches of a nearby tree. You never can foretell what the players will do, but I'm hoping they'll follow him. And, I'm envisioning this fight and/or chase among the limbs and branches of this tree, 40 feet above the forested floor. I see people running along limbs, jumping from one to another. Taking vines and swinging, Tarzan-like, from tree to tree. Finally ending close to a swampy area and a mountain stream with rough rapids that ends in a water fall. The object will be, of course, to get the NPC on the other side of that river so that the PCs will follow. I think #5 will be a pretty exciting session. I've even got this idea that sees the bad guy NPC run and grab a vine that swings him over the river, where he drops and has to make some swim checks against the rapids. A PC follows, jump from the limb and grabs another vine--only this isn't a vine. It's a Cimmerian Vine Viper--a long, thin, poisonous snake. How cool is that going to be describing the PC, swinging over a raging mountain river holding onto a snake! The snake's head bends towards the character and starts snapping at him with those venomous teeth. Then, the PC and the snake both fall into the river! The PC has to fight the rapids, chase the bad guy, not go over the falls, and make it to the other side before the snake get 'em.   Anyway, that's how I've been running my game, and I've got no complaints, yet. In fact, my players seemed glued to the game--so, that just goes to show you how interesting non-combat games can be.</blockquote>

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